


Pure as the Driven Snow

by Sharonneke95



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Fandom, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Cold, Ficlet, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Introspection, Just Maude Ivory's thoughts during a cold night, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29050554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharonneke95/pseuds/Sharonneke95
Summary: Maude Ivory thinks back on how much life has changed during a cold night while huddling with the other Covey for warmth.
Relationships: Covey
Kudos: 8





	Pure as the Driven Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet started off as a warming-up exercise with the prompt 'Snow'. It came out too rounded-off to be catching dust on some forgotten pile.  
> Please enjoy!

It is cold. Colder than it has been in years, or at least that’s how it feels for us. All four of us are huddled together in our small hut. I can feel Tam shiver beside me. Being the smallest and the youngest of the group means they all insisted I had to be in the middle, in the warmest spot of our necessary cuddle. I objected, but they wouldn’t hear any of it. They said Lucy Gray would curse them if anything happened to me. 

I miss her. I miss her more than I’d ever thought possible. And that has nothing to do with her disappearance meaning people don’t ask us as often to perform, or that they don’t pay us enough to allow any kind of heating or even warm food on most days. Mostly I just miss her voice, her words, her hands as she braided my hair. I miss working on a song together. I miss making fun. With shows now being outlawed at the Hob, the other three Covey have been finding other ways to make at least some money, even if it’s not by making music. 

None of them seem to find joy in music anymore. Sometimes I don’t either, but at the same time, singing is the only moment I feel close to her again. Feel any kind of resemblance to how things used to be. How it was before that horrid day of the reaping, where her name had sounded over the square. Of how things were before she was sent off to fight for her life. She may have pretended otherwise, but it had changed her. Games they called it. Lucy Gray and I used to laugh about that name.

I dive deeper into the fabric that ties the four of us together in our warm cocoon and think back on what happened since that dreadful boy meddled in her life, in our lives. Before he toyed with her as if she was nothing more than his ticket out of what he probably thought was a bad situation. Poor him in his penthouse. Poor him, with his family still being alive. Poor him for not having to live through those reapings with fear clutching at his heart, for himself, for those he loves.

Those in the Capitol thought they were off badly, they were off worse, that they had every right to hold on tight to what they thought they deserved. And they left us here. In the cold. In hunger. To be reaped. They thought that it was what we deserved for the war. I hadn’t yet been born during the Dark Days, but the other Covey told me how bad it had been. The Days have left us with barely a fraction of what 12 used to be, and that hadn’t been much to start with. But when they were brave, they’d whisper 12’s faith was still better than 13’s. Their nightmares told me I was better off not asking too much.

Tam shivers again and I lean closer to him, in so far that is possible, hoping to be able to offer him some warmth. From my position I can only just see the window on the other side of the hut. The glass broke last summer and while we tried to barricade it, it isn’t completely closed off. It’s bad with the cold and worse with the rain, but when the weather is good, the view can be pretty. From down here I can only just see that it has started to snow.

The word brings back a memory that makes me bristle softly as my anger rises. I avert my eyes so I don’t have to see the whiteness anymore, while at the same time making sure not to wake the others. Pure as the driven snow, Lucy Gray had sung. How right she had been. From a distance looking pretty and nice, but when you got closer you’d noticed it was only cold and treacherously slippery. 

Just like that awful boy with that awful name.

Coriolanus Snow.


End file.
